


Reason and Rhyme

by Kaerra



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Annette Week (Fire Emblem), F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Happily Ever After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24097981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaerra/pseuds/Kaerra
Summary: Annette's impromptu lesson in Reason for her children goes somewhat unexpectedly... thanks to Felix.For Days 1 and 5 of Annette Week
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 14
Kudos: 57





	Reason and Rhyme

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Annette Week 2020, and it’s up a few days later than I’d intended. This is Day 1, Reason, combined with Day 5, Family. 
> 
> Thank you so much to Reem for the title, as well as suggesting Annette teach with song! I had so much fun writing this. I hope everyone enjoys it! Kudos and comments are very welcome, thank you!

Annette Fantine Fraldarius was tired of the rain.

It had been pouring outside of the thick walls of Castle Fraldarius for the past five days, an oddity for Harpstring Moon even this far north. Her plans for expanding the gardens had been disrupted, along with their departure date to visit Dimitri and his family. If there was anything Annette hated, it was seeing her carefully juggled calendar upended by a force outside her control.

So she found herself walking into the large, well-appointed training hall where her husband still spent an hour or two each day, working through his forms. More often than not, their children joined him, and kept returning despite complaining to her how hard their father made them drill.

Smiling at the thought of her family, Annette set up the targets she preferred for spell-casting. She hadn’t fought a battle in over five years now, and the war had ended over eleven years ago. But she still kept her craft honed, although not as religiously as Felix did with swordsmanship. More often that not, she used her Reason experience to teach the occasional seminar at Garreg Mach, or elsewhere in Fodlan. Before long, she’d start teaching more than the basics at home. That was worth rearranging her entire schedule for; time spent with her children was beyond precious.

Satisfied with the placement of the targets, she took up her normal stance and moved her hands, creating the glyph for Wind. She felt the rush of magic gathering through her body and tingling at her fingertips, as welcome as seeing an old friend for the first time in years. Then she released the energy, watching it knock off the targets, one, two, three, in succession. That felt so good.

She cycled through her spells, Wind, Cutting Gale, and Sagittae, and felt her frustrations release with the energy she channeled into the targets. Right before she moved onto Excalibur, her well-trained ears picked up a familiar sound—her children arguing.

“I _am_ old enough, Mattias! I’m almost seven, and that’s more than old enough to learn magic!” Annette could picture her daughter’s indignant expression without turning around.

“Well I’m almost ten, and I know a lot more math than you do, and Mother says I’m not ready for spell-casting yet,” her son said, echoing the same sardonic tone as his father. “ _I’m_ the oldest, so I’ll learn first.”

“Stop being so bossy! I know how to punch you in the face, Father taught me.”

“Well, Father taught me to dodge, so good luck actually hitting me.”

Annette buried her amusement and switched to the voice Felix insisted sounded professorial. To her, it was plain motherhood.

“Mattias Glenn, Helene Amelie, out of there now.”

She turned and fought back a smirk over their shocked faces at being caught. They had half hidden themselves behind a row of Felix’s training dummies, and slunk out, Helene downcast, and Mattias trying to mimic his father’s neutral expression. Sometimes Annette watched them and simply marveled how two unique, vibrant individuals had come from her and Felix. At nine, Mattias resembled his father, except for the blue of his eyes, which he’d inherited from the Dominic side. Helene was only six, but looked like Annette as a girl, with the same carrot-colored hair and fearless disposition. She came racing up to Annette, skinny arms and legs covered in bruises from her clumsiness; but it was Felix’s bourbon-colored eyes that looked up at her. Mattias halted beside Helene, and began his normal practice of telling on his sister.

“It was Helene’s idea. She wants to practice spell-casting, but I said she was too young.”

“I am not too young!” Helene insisted, then remembered she was supposed to look contrite. Not for the first time, Annette wondered if she’d worn that same expression for her parents when they’d caught her in the kitchens after bedtime.

“You’re both well behind where you would need to be in math skills to do any serious spell-casting,” she said. At their crestfallen faces, she added, “But if you really are determined to put the work in, I’ll show you how to build a glyph for Wind, and you can help me cast it. How does that sound?”

“Yes, yes!” Helene did a little dance.

Mattias crossed his arms and tried to look disinterested, but Annette knew him too well for that. He felt things deeply enough that he did his best to hide them in case things didn’t work out; just like his father.

“I’m only here to make sure Helene doesn’t get into trouble,” he mumbled.

Helene stuck her tongue out at him. “Liar.”

“This offer will last approximately ten seconds or until you stop bickering, whichever comes first,” Annette said.

Her kids blanched, and shut their mouths. Annette couldn’t restrain her smile this time. They were a riot, and she loved them more than she could articulate, even when they drove her crazy.

“Good choice!” she said cheerfully. “Okay, now here’s the process we use to make calculations, and how we build it all into the spell glyph...”

She began a basic explanation about what factors went into a wind spell, and how things like the mass, spread, and speed of the spell were calculated from math. Helene’s eyes were wide, absorbing everything with a focus that belied her age. Mattias listened quietly and eventually shook his head when Annette paused to let them absorb her instructions.

“Why is blowing stuff up so mathematical? I just want to destroy some targets.”

“There will be plenty of opportunities for that when you’re older,” Annette said, chuckling at how much he sounded like her when she started learning Reason. “As boring as it sounds, don’t rush into casting before you’re ready. Cleaning up the mess afterwards is _not_ fun, as I learned from experience.”

Mattias frowned, “And here I thought you’d be nicer about training than Father, even when he makes me do hours of footwork.”

“All in good time, Matti,” Annette said, ruffling his blue-black hair. He smiled despite himself. She walked to stand between her children and turned to face the targets.

“Okay, remember the song I taught you about the order of operations for creating a glyph? ‘First calculate the spread, till it’s all clear in your head. Mass is next to go, you’ll know how much wind will blow. Then it’s on to speed, you’ve got everything you need.’ Got that?”

Mattias and Helene nodded, faces screwed up in concentration. Annette loved how well music helped them remember concepts.

“Now let’s bring up the wind glyph and—”

A crack of lightning sizzled through the air, and eviscerated one of the targets. The children whooped, and Annette whirled to fix her best mom glare on her husband.

“Felix! You know it’s bad form to cast without warning others first!”

He gave her that half-smile she loved, and crossed the weathered stone.

“I actually did call out I was coming in.”

Annette smirked at the memory of the first time he’d used those exact words, so many years ago. “Where have I heard that excuse before?”

Felix arrived to a chorus of two excited kids.

“That was amazing! Can you do it again?”

“Teach me first!”

“I’m the oldest, I get to go first!”

Felix shook his head. “What have I started?”

“Oh, they were well on their way before you disrupted the lesson,” Annette said.

“I’ll make it up to you later,” he said, giving her a long look, fraught with meaning. Annette marveled how he could still make her insides melt with a single glance. Because their kids were present, Felix bent down and kissed her on the forehead. She smiled up at him, calculating the hours till the children’s bedtime.

“Ugh, mushy stuff!” Mattias groaned.

Felix wrapped an arm around his neck and gave him a half hug.

“One day, kid, you’ll think differently,” he said, his voice openly affectionate. Annette adored it when he sounded like that; one of the absolute best ways that Felix had grown into himself since their wedding. He looked up and met her gaze, his eyes still warm.

“Since I’m intruding, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Oh no, you don’t!” Annette arched her brow and crossed her arms. “You can help teach.”

Her stern professorial look was ruined by her wide smile, which Felix returned.

“Fine, I know when I’m beaten,” he said, releasing Mattias, and hauling Helene into his arms. “Where were you in the entropy calculations?”

* * *

Later that evening, Annette and Felix sat side by side on the sofa in the library, one of their favorite places to decompress after their children retired for the night. Felix was halfway through a stack of missives from Fhirdiad, and Annette had chosen a book from her To Be Read pile. But her ability to focus on it was suffering, and she stared into the dancing flames of the fireplace, reflecting on her life in the sixteen years since the Academy. How during their truncated year at Garreg Mach, Felix had been distant and reserved, still so angry from Glenn’s death, until war took over their lives. Time did ease some burdens, but she knew he still fiercely missed his brother, even though they didn’t discuss him often.

“You’re thinking so hard, I can practically hear it.”

Annette turned to meet Felix’s inquiring gaze.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to disrupt your work.”

“You’re not, I am. What’s troubling you?”

That part of him hadn’t altered, she thought ruefully. Even from the beginning of their relationship as classmates, he’d always said what he thought. She hadn’t liked that quality of his till later.

“Nothing, really,” she said, surprising herself with a nostalgic sigh. “I was thinking about how far we’ve come since the Academy. Matti is only seven years away from going now, and that seems so… impossible. He’s closer to that era than we are now.”

Felix put the parchment and pen he held down on the coffee table and pulled her into his arms. Annette happily settled into the embrace. One area where she definitely had changed was in her appreciation for how Felix didn’t always express himself through words. She loved these close silences.

He held her a while, contemplating the fire, before finally speaking.

“We have changed a lot since then, I suppose.”

Annette looked up at him and smiled when he caught her eye.

“Did you ever think you’d be teaching your kids Reason lessons?” she asked.

He paused, considering her question.

“Honestly, I didn’t think I’d ever have kids at all. Certainly not ones I love this much, and feel so much pride and joy in.”

He gave her his half-smile. “But that all changed when I met you.”

“Oh you!” Annette lightly punched him in the arm. “I know you didn’t really like me till the war, when we were all back at Garreg Mach.”

She expected Felix to smirk and cease teasing her, but his expression turned serious. And sincere.

“I hadn’t recognized the glyph my feelings had constructed until after the reunion. Or figured out until the end of the war how exactly to cast the spell,” he said. “But I wasn’t lying when I said it began at the Academy, Annie. You took me captive long before I realized it.”

Annette blushed at the look in his eyes, full of love. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe this was her life. She leaned up and kissed him, welcoming his instant response. When she pulled away, she was smiling.

“I wonder if I could convince you to delay writing those letters till morning?”

“Annette Fantine Fraldarius, are you advocating I postpone my work? Who are you and what have you done with my wife?”

This time, Annette saw the smirk she expected.

“Felix!” she protested, grinning like a buffoon.

He kissed her again, on the nose, then stood up and hauled her to her feet.

“Let’s go to bed.”


End file.
